Perl Hacks : Tips and Tools for Programming, Debugging, and Surviving

by Conway, Damian; Poe, Curtis; Chromatic

• ISBN13: 9780596526740
• ISBN10: 0596526741
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-05-30
• Publisher: Oreilly & Associates Inc

Summary

Like all of the books in O'Reilly's "Hacks" series, "Perl Hacks" will appeal to a variety of programmers - from seasoned pros to dabblers and learners who enjoy the fun of technology. Each hack is designed to be a short lesson: Some are practical, task-based exercises that teach the reader essential skills, while many hacks are simply fun examples of the many cool things that can be done with Perl, the ultimate versatile scripting language. Example hacks include a way to add CPAN shortcuts to the Firefox web browser, a hack to read files backwards, and tips for writing graphical games in Perl. The audience for this book is not limited to Perl programmers either; many non-programmers use Perl as one of several enabling technologies, and it will be useful to them by showing specialized idioms and ideas for common situations.

Author Biography

chromatic is the technical editor of the O'Reilly Network, where he edits Perl.com, ONLamp.com, and the Linux and Security dev centers. He is also the author of the Extreme Programming Pocket Guide, Running Weblogs with Slash, and Perl Testing: A Developer's Notebook as well as the editor of BSD Hacks and Gaming Hacks. He is the original author of Test::Builder, the foundation for most modern testing modules in Perl 5, and has contributed many of the tests for core Perl. He has given tutorials and presentations at several Perl conferences, including OSCON.

Dr. Damian Conway is a Senior Lecturer in Computer Science and Software Engineering at Monash University (Melbourne, Australia), where he teaches object-oriented software engineering. He is an effective teacher, an accomplished writer, and the author of several popular Perl modules. He is also a semi-regular contributor to the Perl Journal. In 1998 he was the winner of the Larry Wall Award for Practical Utility for two modules (Getopt::Declare and Lingua::EN::Inflect) and in 1999 he won his second "Larry" for his Coy.pm haiku-generation module.

Curtis (Ovid) Poe is a CPAN author, a TPF Steering Committee Member, and the TPF Grant Committee Secretary. He likes long walks on the beach and single malt scotch, but hates writing bios. Ovid writes for Perl.com too.

Table of Contents

Credits	ix
Preface	xv
Productivity Hacks	1	(27)
Add CPAN Shortcuts to Firefox	1	(2)
Put Perldoc to Work	3	(3)
Browse Perl Docs Online	6	(2)
Make the Most of Shell Aliases	8	(3)
Autocomplete Perl Identifiers in Vim	11	(3)
Use the Best Emacs Mode for Perl	14	(1)
Enforce Local Style	15	(3)
Don't Save Bad Perl	18	(4)
Automate Checkin Code Reviews	22	(3)
Run Tests from Within Vim	25	(1)
Run Perl from Emacs	26	(2)
User Interaction	28	(23)
Use Seditor As Your UI	28	(2)
Interact Correctly on the Command Line	30	(2)
Simplify Your Terminal Interactions	32	(5)
Alert Your Mac	37	(2)
Interactive Graphical Apps	39	(6)
Collect Configuration Information	45	(3)
Rewrite the Web	48	(3)
Data Munging	51	(20)
Treat a File As an Array	51	(2)
Read Files Backwards	53	(1)
Use Any Spreadsheet As a Data Source	54	(4)
Factor Out Database Code	58	(3)
Build a SQL Library	61	(2)
Query Databases Dynamically Without SQL	63	(1)
Bind Database Columns	64	(2)
Iterate and Generate Expensive Data	66	(2)
Pull Multiple Values from an Iterator	68	(3)
Working with Modules	71	(35)
Shorten Long Class Names	71	(1)
Manage Module Paths	72	(2)
Reload Modified Modules	74	(2)
Create Personal Module Bundles	76	(2)
Manage Module Installations	78	(3)
Presolve Module Paths	81	(2)
Create a Standard Module Toolkit	83	(2)
Write Demos from Tutorials	85	(2)
Replace Bad Code from the Outside	87	(2)
Drink to the CPAN	89	(1)
Improve Exceptional Conditions	90	(3)
Search CPAN Modules Locally	93	(3)
Package Standalone Perl Applications	96	(3)
Create Your Own Lexical Warnings	99	(2)
Find and Report Module Bugs	101	(5)
Object Hacks	106	(23)
Turn Your Objects Inside Out	106	(3)
Serialize Objects (Mostly) for Free	109	(2)
Add Information with Attributes	111	(2)
Make Methods Really Private	113	(3)
Autodeclare Method Arguments	116	(3)
Control Access to Remote Objects	119	(3)
Make Your Objects Truly Polymorphic	122	(3)
Autogenerate Your Accessors	125	(4)
Debugging	129	(21)
Find Compilation Errors Fast	129	(1)
Make Invisible Characters Apparent	130	(3)
Debug with Test Cases	133	(2)
Debug with Comments	135	(3)
Show Source Code on Errors	138	(3)
Deparse Anonymous Functions	141	(2)
Name Your Anonymous Subroutines	143	(2)
Find a Subroutine's Source	145	(1)
Customize the Debugger	146	(4)
Developer Tricks	150	(28)
Rebuild Your Distributions	150	(1)
Test with Specifications	151	(4)
Segregate Developer and User Tests	155	(3)
Run Tests Automatically	158	(1)
See Test Failure Diagnostics---In Color!	159	(3)
Test Live Code	162	(2)
Cheat on Benchmarks	164	(2)
Build Your Own Perl	166	(2)
Run Test Suites Persistently	168	(5)
Simulate Hostile Environments in Your Tests	173	(5)
Know Thy Code	178	(37)
Understand What Happens When	178	(4)
Inspect Your Data Structures	182	(2)
Find Functions Safely	184	(2)
Know What's Core and When	186	(1)
Trace All Used Modules	187	(4)
Find All Symbols in a Package	191	(2)
Peek Inside Closures	193	(3)
Find All Global Variables	196	(2)
Introspect Your Subroutines	198	(4)
Find Imported Functions	202	(2)
Profile Your Program Size	204	(2)
Reuse Perl Processes	206	(2)
Trace Your Ops	208	(3)
Write Your Own Warnings	211	(4)
Expand Your Perl Foo	215	(52)
Double Your Data with Dualvars	215	(2)
Replace Soft References with Real Ones	217	(2)
Optimize Away the Annoying Stuff	219	(2)
Lock Down Your Hashes	221	(1)
Clean Up at the End of a Scope	222	(2)
Invoke Functions in Odd Ways	224	(6)
Glob Those Sequences	230	(3)
Write Less Error-Checking Code	233	(2)
Return Smarter Values	235	(3)
Return Active Values	238	(3)
Add Your Own Perl Syntax	241	(3)
Modify Semantics with a Source Filter	244	(4)
Use Shared Libraries Without XS	248	(2)
Run Two Services on a Single TCP Port	250	(3)
Improve Your Dispatch Tables	253	(4)
Track Your Approximations	257	(3)
Overload Your Operators	260	(4)
Learn from Obfuscations	264	(3)
Index	267